between 40,000 and 55,000 Russian men under the age of 50 died fighting in Ukraine by May 27, 2023. This is why people should listen to demographers and not random sources. (looking at all the account stenographing the Ukr MoD) meduza.io/en/feature/202… It's totally reasonable to say, "Motivated distortion also clouds information from Ukrainian officials and the Western intelligence sources who speak to news outlets, neither of whom corroborate their claims with verifiable data." just like the Russian side.

I always feel so conflicted about these videos from Orain, and nothing better underlines why I think these vids are counerproductive than the YouTube comments Obviously I think he's great in that he has tried, more than anyone to show how differently people respond in Russia to the war. And probably his greatest contribution is to show how many people are principled and not afraid to show dissent.

It's very sad to see numerous people whose work I respect, uncritically retweeting this inaccurate and mistargeted article. voxukraine.org/en/why-russian… I already wrote about these attacks on Russian Studies. I understand Ukrainians who write this, but, as I've argued before, like it or not, if you argue for defunding Area Studies you won't get more understanding of Ukraine. I note all the authors are safely in Econ departments.

Seeing variations on 'this Russian article about nukes signals this faction's maneuvering. And this article indicates testing the water of X.'

This tends to ignore context: Russian think-tankland is just a mirror of our own Washington Blob. Where is the sociology of punditry? It's striking to contrast English-lang first-order interpretation of the 'nuke'em' stuff as representing some kind of IR reality, whereas you skip over to Russian Facebook to be told: 'yes, Ivanov has to remain relevant and spout this shit to pretend he still has MoD links'.

Reading Suny for insights on how Russian and Ukrainian Studies will change: "With the Nazi invasion of the USSR in June 1941, attitudes shifted once again, spawning an outpouring of writing on Russia and the Soviet Union. Some 200 books were published in the United States 1943-5" "Amb. Davies’s memoir, Mission to Moscow (1941), sold 700,000 copies and memorialized in a splashy Hollywood film that lauded Soviet achievements, “convicted” those charged at Moscow trials, justified the attack on Finland, and portrayed Stalin as a benignly avuncular patriarch."

A good example of the imbrication between so-called liberal reformers and the inevitability of the current regime. The revolution from above ate not only its children but parents too.

https://twitter.com/meduza_en/status/1630146166150004738

Of course he was also a real intellectual and in many ways a model of the Soviet intellectual elite, educated, philologically начитанный, as they say. What still unites them with regime is their complete contempt for their plebian countrymen.

Turned on Channel One on the anniversary of war because I was staying with Russian journos in exile, and they started spitting blood when Fedya Lukyanov came on. Here's his piece in Global Affairs.... globalaffairs.ru/articles/dvizh… Lukyanov: exactly a year ago [I wrote] "Fortress Russia" selflessly decided to test its strength. At the same time, becoming an agent of a fundamental change in the whole world."

My host: "Fedya seemed such a normal person 20 years ago when I interviewed for *****."

Gonna do a twitter thing: comment on something I know nothing of, but tanks don't really work unless you've got infantry prepared to get up and go toe to toe in the open with an enemy that's got multiple ways of killing you. Not sure even well trained armies can do that nowadays.

https://twitter.com/thinkdefence/status/1600574202372833357

So not a point about 'training'. Russia shows that even in society where there's so much despair people want to go in the meat-grinder, once they get there even if you can coordinate them, the combined arms illusion breaks down immediately.

Having to explain to a Russian professor in Russia (about the Dozhd' skandal) that said professor doesn't have to use phrase 'our army', and that I would never say 'our army' about British or NATO troops. His incredulous response: 'Are you some kind of communist?' 😍😍😍 To be fair to him, we eventually got a a point where he realised he had started repeating a load of Putin tropes. "про армию и наших - это сидит на подсознании."